Millionaire revealed as @HiddenCash mystery man

The Bay Area man who had anonymously been dropping wads of cash around the state for the past few weeks has stepped out of the shadows.

Palo Alto real estate millionaire Jason Buzi confirmed to the Bold Italic on Friday that he has been the one making Californians see green over the past two weeks.

Buzi began hiding cash around San Francisco last month and tweeting clues on where to find it. He soon spread the wealth to San Jose, and then farther south to Hermosa Beach.

He told The Chronicle in an e-mail that he wanted to do “something fun” with the money he made on a real estate deal that earned him a half-million-dollar profit.

Jason Buzi

Jason Buzi, the man behind @HiddenCash on Twitter, was not always successful in leaving cash for strangers. In 2008, San Francisco police told him he needed a permit for a cash giveaway that involved tomatoes.(Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle)

Buzi has experience running scavenger hunts, hiding tomatoes with cash attached to them around Dolores Park in an event to promote his video-sharing site, CashTomato.com. The website is no longer operational.

Inside Edition first outed Buzi using a voice analysis expert, but he denied it at the time. He told The Chronicle that he wanted to remain anonymous because he once “had some publicity before and nothing good ever resulted from it.”

The publicity included a 2012 Palo Alto Weekly story that highlighted residents’ concerns about his business practices.

Buzi told the Bold Italic that he will continue running @HiddenCash as long as people have fun with it.